Currently, fruits, vegetables, and other types of produce are generally picked by hand through manual labor. Picking produce by hand is labor intensive, slow, and manpower is expensive. Additionally, manual labor may result in error when picking (e.g., missing items, picking produce that is not ripened, and damaging produce when picked) and the intense conditions of manually picking produce (e.g., in the sun and under hot conditions) may lead to health issues among workers.
Additionally, picking such produce mechanically has proved to be challenging. Mechanical systems cannot easily vary the force applied to such produce, leading to damage to the produce picked, including bruising, rupturing, and other damage that may make fruit unmarketable. Additionally, as produce grow in different sizes, picking produce of such different sizes is also difficult for mechanical systems. A mechanical system calibrated to pick produce of one size may be ill-suited to picking produce of another size as, for example, such a mechanical system may have trouble gripping the different size produce, have a gripping force that may be damaging to the different size produce, and/or may be ill suited to pick from the environment that the various produce grows within (e.g., grown on trees versus grown on the ground). Thus, improved picking systems are needed.